I Can't Go Home – All Quiet on the Western FrontDuring his leave, perhaps this is the realization Baumer's most striking manifestation of the emptiness of words in his former society occurs when he is alone in his old bedroom at his parents' house. After failing to feel part of his old society by speaking with his mother, father and his father's friends, Baumer attempts to reconnect with his past by becoming a resident of the place again. Here, among his memories, the photos and postcards hanging on the wall, the familiar and comfortable brown leather sofa, Baumer waits for something that will make him feel part of his pre-enlistment world. It is his old school textbooks which symbolize this older, more contemplative and less military world and which, Baumer hopes, will return him to the innocent habits of his youth. I want that quiet rapture again. I want to feel the same powerful, nameless need I felt when I turned to my books. The breath of desire that rose then from the colored spines of the books, will fill me again, will melt the heavy piece of dead lead that lies somewhere within me and will awaken again the impatience for the future, the joy rapidity of the world of thought. , it will bring back the lost eagerness of my youth. I sit and wait (Note, All Quiet VII. 151). But Baumer continues to wait and the sign does not come; quiet kidnapping does not occur. The play itself and the pre-enlistment world it represents become foreign to him. “A sudden feeling of strangeness arises within me. I cannot find my way back” (Remark, All Quiet VII. 152). Baumer understands that he is irremediably lost in the primitive, military and non-academic world of war. Ultimately, books are worthless because the words in them are meaningless. "Words, they do not reach me. Slowly, I put the books back on the shelves. Never again" (Remark, All Quiet VII. 153). In his experiments with traditional society, Baumer perverts language, the language that separates humans from beasts, to the point that it no longer has any meaning. Baumer shows his rejection of this traditional society by refusing or being unable to use the norms of his language. His relationships with his fellow soldiers in the trenches contrast with Baumer's experiences when visiting him..